Born in the year of 1991, Fariz Bin Addul Aziz is no stranger to photography. Having realized his interest in photography at a tender young age, Fariz constantly sought to capture special moments of his life and preserve them, telling a story and sending a message to others under the subtle guise of entertainment.

As he grew older, Fariz kept pushing his boundaries as a photographer and artist, venturing out of his comfort zone to improve on the art form which he was so passionately involved in. “This life journey of relentlessly finding new ways of inspiring aesthetic emotions has led me onto a path in pursuit of a Diploma In Fine Art (Photography) at The Nanyang Academy Of Fine Art.” A firm believer that photography is one of the new media forms that can influence perception and thus change the structure of society, Fariz’s prints focus on the social and political issues that surround him in everyday life. “Susan Sontag who was an American author, literary theorist and political activist once wrote of her concern that the ability to censor pictures would mean that the photographer has the ability to reconstruct reality from his own perception. It has always been my attention to direct people’s attention to the ironic humor that lies hidden in this concrete jungle that we live in.”

Fariz about his Graduation project: “Censorship has taken on a broad and almost abstract form after its many years of development and fine-tuning. Each adjustment and amendment only brings with it more items, which are deemed necessary for censorship, implying a grand national state of paranoia and defensiveness. In psychology, any form of defensiveness is seen as a definite indication of one’s need for secrecy of a (oftentimes) shameful truth. In this context, censorship can be implored and seriously taken as a symbolism of dirty deeds hidden in plain sight from the masses. The need to veil a location in an otherwise “free” software such as google maps raises serious questions about the level of honesty of a government. When longitude and latitude of a blurred out location are as obvious as white light from dark, one can’t help but ponder the effectiveness of the concealment of shady structures unless the initial objective was to conceal the imagery of the structure itself. In this series of works, the ancient play of parody is employed to bring forth an essential truth- Technology has made us all more vulnerable than ever before. Warfare is no longer an option. Doubt and distrust is no longer an option. The only next logical step in an “open source” and united world as such currently lies in the direction of faith and cooperation. You can run, but you can’t hide anymore. It’s not just big brother who’s watching, we all are.”